The ships were last seen entering Baffin Bay in August 1845. The disappearance of the Franklin expedition set off a massive search effort in the Arctic. The broad circumstances of the expedition's fate were first revealed when Hudson's Bay Company doctor John Rae collected artifacts and testimony from local Inuit in 1853. Later expeditions up to 1866 confirmed these reports.

Both ships had become icebound and had been abandoned by their crews, totaling about 130 men, all of whom died from a variety of causes, including hypothermia, scurvy, and starvation while trying to trek overland to the south. Subsequent expeditions until the late 1980s, including autopsies of crew members, also revealed that their shoddily canned rations may have been tainted by both lead and botulism. Oral reports by local Inuit that some of the crew members resorted to cannibalism were at least somewhat supported by forensic evidence of cut marks on the skeletal remains of crew members found on King William Island during the late 20th century.[7]

A British transport ship, Renovation, spotted two ships on a large ice floe off the coast of Newfoundland in April 1851. The identities of the ships were not confirmed. It was suggested over the years that these might have been Erebus and Terror, though it is now certain they could not have been, and were most likely abandoned whaling ships.[8]

The wreckage of one of Franklin's ships was found on 2 September 2014 by a Parks Canada team led by Ryan Harris and Marc-André Bernier [11][4] On 1 October 2014 it was announced that the remains were that of Erebus.[12] Recovery of the ship's bell was announced on 6 November 2014.[13]

On 4 March 2015 a winter diving expedition on Erebus, consisting of Parks Canada and Royal Canadian Navy divers, was announced to commence in April.[14]

On 12 September 2016 it was announced that the wreck of HMS Terror had been found submerged in Terror Bay, off the south-west coast of King William Island.[15]

Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition (2001), by Scott Cookman, offers a journalistic account of Franklin's expedition that is up-to-date, factual and scholarly, and seeks to shed new light on this century-and-a-half-old mystery.

Erebus and Terror appear in Dan Simmons' novel, The Terror (2007) which is a fictional account of the expedition's fate.

Clive Cussler's novel, Arctic Drift (2008), uses Erebus and Terror as part of the plot as well as the establishing backstory of the ill-fated expedition.

^Peter B. Campbell (2015-12-18). "Could Shipwrecks Lead the World to War?". New York Times. p. A23. Archived from the original on 2015-12-19. “Franklin’s ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty,” Mr. Harper said.